Largest Critical Habitat Designation in History — Natural History Wanderings

Press Release Center for Biological Diversity Largest Critical Habitat Designation in History Would Protect 226 Million Acres for Alaska’s Ringed Seals ANCHORAGE, Alaska— Arctic ringed seals threatened by climate change today received proposed protections for more than 226 million acres of critical habitat in Alaska’s Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort seas. Ringed seals were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in […]

Largest Critical Habitat Designation in History — Natural History Wanderings

Harp seal pup production poor in Gulf of St. Lawrence but it won’t impact the population — polarbearscience

A seal biologist with Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans has confirmed that harp seal pupping was almost non-existent this year in the Gulf of St. Lawrence due to poor sea ice conditions. The ice at the Front has been lighter than usual this year but probably adequate for a decent crop of baby seals. […]

Harp seal pup production poor in Gulf of St. Lawrence but it won’t impact the population — polarbearscience

The report on the latest population estimate for harp seals off the east coast of North America was released in late March without fanfare and therefore no media attention. This was one of the missing scientific reports mentioned in my State of the Polar Bear Report 2019 released in February (Crockford 2020): results of surveys […]

via New report: Harp seal population critical to Davis Strait polar bears is still increasing — polarbearscience

Charge a refundable deposit on bottles and bags?

WE ARE ALL RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ACCUMULATION OF PLASTIC WASTE IN THE WORLD!

WE use it, many just throw it away. That  is plastic container and bag products I’m talking about. Manufacturers manufacture it it, consumer product manufacturers put their products in it, and it goes out into the marketplaces of the whole world and WE buy it.  Then,  too many people carelessly dispose of it. Problem is it doesn’t go away! It is gathered and collected everywhere as it blows over the land, flows into our streams and rivers then into the oceans and out into the larger world.

The results of OUR using plastic packaging products can be seen everywhere- stuck to farm wire fences that the wind has carried off. We find it in our parks, in our schoolyards on our streets and in our waterways!

Fish, Whales , Albatrosses , Sea Turtles, Seals and many other living things either ingest it or are trapped by it; in any event it often times (not rarely)  leads to death of some living thing. It travels out of our waterways and into the currents of the world’s oceans there to be gathered and spun around over and over again into huge collections of TRASH, floating in ever larger pools in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

Plastic pollution is so  prolifically found on many East African beaches that local impoverished women collect the more valuable of it for re-selling to re-manucturers. Beaches everywhere can be collecting points in any of the world’s oceans. On some small oceanic islands  plastic garbage is becoming the main feature.

Most politicians are not concerned about it. Some are but think there is not much that can be done about it. There are a few that care but not enough of them willing to stand up and fight this deadly problem.

In third world countries where plastic bags are used the people there are often most concerned about surviving that day and are not much disposed to concern themselves as to where the plastic throw-aways go.

And to think that it was not too many decades ago that plastic products in all its many manifestations were introduced into a willing world, and little by little it has come to the point where we are today! Second only, but barely, to climate change as a major world threat, plastic pollution is dramatically changing our world, and is threatening it. It’s turning our environment into something very ugly, it is killing  fish and birds and whales which unknowingly feed on the oceans  now often deadly resources.

There are so many waterways totally plugged up with floating and semi-submersed plastic debris in some third world countries that an unsuspecting traveler would be absolutely shocked to consider that this was even possible. First world countries are not exempt either as most industrial economies have been abusing our waterfronts and waterways in so any ways for hundreds of years dumping all kinds of crap into them even setting the rivers on fire, and are still unabashedly doing so.

Somebody one day thought putting toothpaste in plastic was a good idea.

WE NEED TO PRESSURE OUR GOVERNMENT REPRESENTATIVES, CONSUMERS GOODS MANUFACTURERS AND PACKAGING PRODUCERS to get much more creative about packaging and get very much more interested in the current world situation in this regard.

Lets start by passing legislation in every country requiring a refundable deposit on plastic containers, bottles and bags. Sounds like a big order. YES, it surely is, but it it is doable if the worlds’ people decide they want a change…

…LETS HELP THEM DECIDE!

TM

Pt. Reyes National Seashore Reports: Due to the elephant seal population expansion at Drakes Beach in front of the Ken Patrick Visitor Center, Point Reyes National Seashore begins today an elephant seal control program by re-introducing grizzly bears to their historic range along the coast. By bringing back a natural predator to the elephant seal, […]

via Grizzly Bears To Control Pt. Reyes Elephant Seal Population — Natural History Wanderings